So the German version of Release the Hounds aired this evening on ProSieben, just shy of two hours long and with five contestants instead of three, and hosted by German The Voice host Thore Schölermann. It was filmed in the same location as the original.
Main differences (I won’t go into too much detail in case any future contestants do some research) – the team were split into a pair and three and sent on their separate ways, there was a bit with a car and another bit which was a treasure hunt in a graveyard which was fun, although as ever as the scenarios (which were otherwise basically the same as the UK one) can’t be lost it was rather tensionless. The way the team rejoined each other after splitting was thoughtfully handled.
Outrunning the dogs has become a bit easier – whereas before (correct me if I’m wrong) you had to cover 80m, 100m and 120m (60, 90, 120?) with the dogs starting at the 150m mark, now it’s a straight 90m dash with the dogs starting 70m behind and gaining ten metres after every scenario. This seems to feel much more doable, with someone winning big money with a 40m headstart (although the final round at thirty metres was a loss). There were five cases worth €70k total (about €20k from the first three cases, the same figures as our ones, then ~€20k and ~€30k for the last two). The losers just get up and talk to Thore straightaway and they all celebrate at the end which is honest if rather safe.
Overall whilst I thought it developed the ideas from the UK pilot fairly well but it’s still not hitting me in a way I really want it to. But if there’s anything we’ve learnt this evening, it’s that people shouting swearwords at surprise entities is universal.
In other big foreign news, Paolo Bonolis is leaving Avanti un Altro, being replaced with Italian TV legend Gerry Scotti, from the end of March. It looks like AuA is a 7 day a week 50 week a year prospect now!
I’ve read that Canale5 wanted to buy the rights for Chain Reaction and have Gerry host it, but probably the plan failed.
well, at least we’ll have an April Fools episode of AUA!
Do any of our German Ratings correspondants know how well this did last night?
Hi,
The ratings were quite bad – 9,1% in the advertising relevant target group (14 to 49 year olds) and 4.3% over all, clearly under the average for the channel.
It ran against “Deustchland sucht den Superstar” (German Idol) and a big quiz show.
I watched most of it myself and I wasn’t impressed. It wasn’t very suspenseful – neither from the horror elemets nor the game play. Most of the time the contestants stood around discussing what to do and when they did something, it was often difficult to see what they were doing.
Robin
Thanks Robin! I think we’re basically of the same opinion.
Apropos of absolutely nothing, but still: I somehow managed to stumble across a version of 2000 regional kids TV show (that I loved when I was on holiday down south), but Indonesian. And played with adults for money.
Oh arse, I forgot to mention that it’s the show Swap Team.
From the looks of it, the original Norwegian show ‘Der Perfekte Kup’ was with adults all along. So there we are.
I’d dearly like ro watch this but the camera shaking is so bad it made me feel a bit sick 🙁
Right, I’m too tired to watch this tonight but tomorrow evening I’m all over it:
http://youtu.be/_owaB9kEfOk
Actually quite liked this. A pretty simple idea, but a nice level of kitsch. Could see something like SyFy picking it up States-side. Though, considering some of their other format pickups, I’d be worried how much they’d pad it out. And dat American game show casting.
Yeah I enjoyed this, like Cash Crash but with sensibilities closer to The Whole 19 Yards. Would watch again, but it does require the slightly mad atmosphere. Great soundtrack. Probably too weird for mainstream success, but without the weirdness there wouldn’t be enough there.
I like how they decided to use three different Muse tracks for all three of the rope swing bits.